Trump Solves Opioid Crisis: 1. Become Dictator Of Philippines; 2. Kill Everyone; 3. ???; 4. PROFIT!

Bet people will think they're twins.

Axios reported this weekend that Donald Trump is really taken with the idea of executing drug dealers, because it works so good in Singapore, which has a mandatory death penalty for all drug dealers. For that matter, for Trump's best bud Rodrigo Duterte, the president of the Philippines, murdering drug dealers and users -- not to mention family members, bystanders and people who turned themselves in and sought treatment for addiction -- has become something of a sport. More than 12,000 people have been murdered in extrajudicial killings by police and vigilantes since Duterte began his literal war on drugs in June 2016.

Trump is just all kinds of thrilled by the prospects of getting so murderously tough on drug dealers that the drug trade will just go away and no one will ever do drugs again, according to people close to Trump. He likes to point out that Singapore has very low rates of drug use:

"He says that a lot," said a source who's spoken to Trump at length about the subject. "He says, 'When I ask the prime minister of Singapore do they have a drug problem [the prime minister replies,] 'No. Death penalty'."

He often jokes about killing drug dealers... He’ll say, 'You know the Chinese and Filipinos don’t have a drug problem. They just kill them.'

But the president doesn't just joke about it. According to five sources who've spoken with Trump about the subject, he often leaps into a passionate speech about how drug dealers are as bad as serial killers and should all get the death penalty.

Trump does at least acknowledge that's probably not gonna happen in America, because we have all these dumb pussy "laws" and wimpy "judges" and a terrible, terrible "Constitution" that won't even let you torture bad people, let alone suspects. But he's definitely not in favor of being soft or kind, because that's so weak. He wants the stiffest penalties possible, even if police can't just start shooting people in the streets, bang -bang. It's unclear whether Trump's insistence on killing people extends to addicts themselves, but since many users occasionally sell drugs, too, problem solved.

That Scared-or-Shot Straight attitude extends to Trump's beliefs about prevention, too!

He tells friends and associates the government has got to teach children that they'll die if they take drugs and they've got to make drug dealers fear for their lives.

The effectiveness of that approach may be diminished by the demonstrable fact that while many people do die of overdoses, many more use drugs and remain inconveniently alive, albeit addicted. Which kids might notice, the little smartasses.

Now, Kellyanne Conway went on the record to say that Trump's real position is more "nuanced," as if he even knows what that word is. In reality, she claims,

the president is talking about high-volume dealers who are killing thousands of people. The point he's making, she says, is that some states execute criminals for killing one person but a dealer who brings a tiny quantity of fentanyl into a community can cause mass death in just one weekend, often with impunity.

Which doesn't actually deny that he fantasizes about just killing them all. And maybe torturing them some, too, who can say?

As far as actual legislation, there's not yet any federal death penalty for drug dealers being proposed, but Trump will likely support a mandatory minimum sentence of five years for trafficking as little of two grams of fentanyl, since as little as two milligrams can be deadly. It's a comedown from machine-gunning people in the street like they do in a tough manly country like the Philippines, but for now, Trump's willing to work with what he's got.

Trump has not yet clarified whether he would leave the execution of drug dealers to professionals, or whether he would run in and kill them with his own bare hands. 

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[ Axios ]